January 23, 2012

Right after school I am to go to Korea with my mom to address my spine condition in hopes of “fixing me.” It should take around a month, this trip, and then I return home instead of the mission field. I plan to fill up those remaining 2 months at another university, believe it or not; I will finally have the opportunity to earn an EMT certification. But I am behind.

My competition already have their EMT certifications and have gone on multiple summer study/research/intern programs at prestigious universities long before my sluggish brain comprehended those opportunities. To make up for that loss of time ironically I have been spending my free time looking up what universities offer programs for undergraduates like me.

I stumbled across the statistics of med school applicants who were accepted into med schools in 2010. An impressive GPA and MCAT score is surely not all there is to it, but it was intimidating, motivating, and exhilarating all at the same time.

I am going to get a 4.0, most definitely not on my own, but by relinquishing all rights to my Facebook and Tumblr to my roommate I believe that I’ve already begun. (WordPress will be mine because I need a place to breathe.)

All those people far ahead can go ahead and laugh; I’m not the smartest but I’ll sure as heck be the hardest working.

January 17, 2012

Today my professor told us she is lesbian.

I dared not look at the expressions of my 17 other peers for fear of giving my own shock away.

We were speaking about the injustices that has been happening in this country, a topic stemming from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and the monumental movement he influenced. In today’s paradigm it is incredibly ridiculous to deny basic health care to anyone; it is a matter of life or death and to deny a specific group the human right to health care and treatments is to decide who is deserving of life and who is not. It took 100 years after the Civil War for the government to recognize and pass a law to guarantee something that should be already promised, despite the level of melanin in your skin.

Now. Apply that same concept to one of today’s biggest controversies: LGBT rights.

I am not saying to support gay marriage in the least bit; the Bible says marriage is holy matrimony between a man and a woman. I am not saying I understand their preferences. But I am saying that they are people and should be treated as such.

Whom you love and how you love should not have to be the cause of heated debates in the Senate. It most certainly should NOT in any way, shape, or form dictate who deserves health care and who does not, who gets the job or who gets cut.

My professor. Her face didn’t give away her plight but her quivering voice and pleading eyes did. She called herself different as if it were an admittance to a disease, something that society shuns. She told us of how her partner could not have health insurance, but she could because of her job, but she could easily lose her job. She told us of how easy it is to get angry and frustrated.

Whom she loves and how she loves doesn’t and should never take the luster away from her PhD in anatomy, her brilliant mind, or her amicable nature. She is still my professor all the same. Call me impressionable, but the tears she held back spoke louder than words. I choose to believe that nothing’s changed.

Wake up, America. Instead of just swallowing the gossip and opinions thrown around at the dinner table think for yourself. You deny yourself that personal freedom and leave it at the mercy of others. Christians, aren’t we called to love one another? There are no exceptions, no fine print. Let’s step it up, Church.

January 17, 2012

January 13, 2012

It has come to attention that there seem to be two constants in all of my classes this semester:

The female species are more abundant than the male species, out-numbering them at a staggering 75 to 25 in one case.

There are at least 130 kids in the lectures pertaining to my major.

The first point is not a surprise; this statistic is what makes this university particularly reputable. (The high levels of estrogen was a reason I had reservations about this school.)

But this is for the second.

I know: I declared a major that’s pretty popular in not only this school but probably nationwide. The competition started in high school but it’s only become more blatantly obvious now that we’re forced to see our competitors in lecture halls of 130 other students. Every one of those students has a goal and a hope for their future. I hear “I’m gonna be a doctor” or an ER surgeon or a pharmacist, or some other health care professional as student eagerly titter about their futures.

They all (every single one I’ve spoken with) declare it and state it like it’s bound to happen. It’s going to happen. What makes them so sure that they can oust out the hundred, thousand, millions of other bright-eyed students? Where is this confidence that says they can pass the bar exam coming from? Is this arrogance warranted or is it just twaddle meant to impress? Why do they want this?

I have this thing called an ambition, too. It started off as a selfish desire but it became something bigger than myself. But the question to ask is not how many people am I ahead of, but rather how many others are running ahead of me? So don’t ask me what I want to do with my life because it’s never been my decision to start with. I have to get there, have to not only pass but excel because He’s called me out on one prayer a long time ago.